As a general rule, don’t be shy, tell everyone you know about your forum. But only do it once in a polite manner. Say you are inviting them to check out something you have created and that you want their valuable opinion before you officially launch. This “sneak peek” will make your friends and family feel special because you are demonstrating that you value their opinion so they will be more inclined to check out your site.

You can put a note in your signature file in your email about your new community, make a few posts at newsgroups that focus on your target market and hit some other complimentary (not competitor) forums to advertise your new forum. Remember always be courteous, follow rules and don’t come across too desperate whenever you promote your forum. All this will come across negatively and harm your chances of members signing up.

The most important tip I can give you to grow your community is to not give up. Even though YoungActivist.com is sitting out there all alone with no members and very old content I still value the site. While I didn’t achieve the success I wanted off the bat, I haven’t given up and hope that one day can I can get the site growing again.

Sometime after months, maybe even years of making new posts, adding content and spreading the word, you will find that your forum has grown to have a few hundred members, a handful of devoted regulars and no longer requires daily injections of posts from you. You reach a critical mass and your community moves forward without too much intervention from you. This is the holy grail of forum building because your members became the best advertising tool you could ever have. Word of mouth helps the site to continue to grow and attract new members. You can start creating new forums with confidence that they won’t be empty for long. Best of all, you now have an audience that you can either leverage around your own products or services or start to derive revenue from through advertising, premium services or subscriptions etc etc.